Editorial: Scott Brown, Rachel Maddow help each other out

Monday

Mar 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2010 at 12:09 AM

No one knows what Scott Brown will face in 2012, and the names of likely challengers may not be known outside of Massachusetts circles. So in a recent fundraising letter, Brown conjured up the more recognizable name of a potential challenger: liberal MSNBC talk host Rachel Maddow.

Scott Brown ended his successful campaign for the U.S. Senate two months ago with money in the bank. In the final week, as his longshot candidacy caught the imaginations of conservatives across the country, money flowed in faster than he could spend it.

But it is a sad fact of modern politics that Senate incumbents can never pause in their fundraising, and Brown will face the voters again in 2012. So, like his colleagues of both parties, Brown is soliciting donations from all quarters.

It's also a sad fact of modern politics that appeals for campaign cash are more successful when the candidate can inspire fear as well as affection. "Help me keep ..." Pelosi, Gingrich, Palin, fill-in-the-blank... "out of Washington," the candidate will say.

No one knows what Brown will face in 2012, and the names of likely challengers may not be known outside of Massachusetts circles. So in a recent fundraising letter, Brown conjured up the more recognizable name of a potential challenger: liberal MSNBC talk host Rachel Maddow.

Maddow, who lives in western Massachusetts, says she has no intention of running for the Senate and hasn't discussed it with state Democratic Party officials. She has said so on her cable talk show several times, taking obvious delight in the story, demanding Brown repudiate the letter and inviting him to appear on his show.

To underline Maddow's position further, MSNBC took out a full-page ad in a Boston paper Friday to announce she isn't running and to remind people that her show airs at 9 p.m.

What we have is political/media synergy. Brown uses Maddow's celebrity to raise campaign cash. Maddow uses Brown's celebrity to boost her ratings. Seems to be working out for everyone involved.

The MetroWest Daily News

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